Foster a sustainable behaviour using a gamification approach : an exploratory study

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Foster a Sustainable Behaviour Using a

Gamification Approach: an Exploratory Study

Bachelor Project submitted for the Bachelor of Science HES in Business

Administration with a major in International Management

Gennaro SANGIORGI

Bachelor Project Advisor:

Sabine EMAD, Professor

Geneva, 14 August 2014

Haute école de gestion de Genève (HEG-GE)

Économie d’entreprise (International Management)

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Declaration

This Bachelor Project is submitted as part of the final examination requirements of the Geneva School of Business Administration, for obtaining the Bachelor of Science HES-SO in Business Administration, with major in International Management.

The student accepts the terms of the confidentiality agreement if one has been signed. The use of any conclusions or recommendations made in the Bachelor Project, with no prejudice to their value, engages neither the responsibility of the author, nor the adviser to the Bachelor Project, nor the jury members nor the HEG.

“I attest that I have personally accomplished this work without using any sources other than those cited in the bibliography. Furthermore, I have sent this document by email, to the address supplied by my adviser, for analysis by the plagiarism detection software URKUND (http://www.urkund.com/int/en/student_gorsahar.asp). ”

Vezia, 14 August 2014

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Acknowledgements

First, I am very grateful to my Professor, Sabine Emad, who gave me very precious advices on how to develop my bachelor project. I want to thank also all the students who have tested my model and have given me very valuable feedback. Finally, I would like to thank my family who has been supporting me during the whole project.

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Executive Summary

Forecasts predict that at the end of this century world population will reach more than ten billion. This increase will cause an overexploitation of our ecosystem. Already now there are some countries that consume more resources than their lands can provide, while some others live in poor conditions. With the increase of the population, we will put even more pressure on our ecosystem and some countries will suffer more than others. For this reason, a new model of development is necessary, and a sustainable one is desirable.

In order to have a sustainable development all the actors of the society are trying to find solutions and in the future they will have to try even harder. It will be not enough that just a single actor will do something but all the society together will have to contribute to this change.

This paper tries to evaluate whether a model based on gamification technique would motivate people in behaving in a more sustainable way. Past researches declare that consumers are aware of the sustainable issue and they would like to behave in a sustainable way. However, their willingness is not always transformed into a sustainable behaviour. Therefore, it has been developed a model which use game mechanics to drive consumer behaviour toward a sustainable one.

Motivation is crucial for changing people behaviour and gamification, which implies the use of game elements and mechanics in other contexts, has proved to be a powerful motivational tool. Hence, a sustainable gamified system has been developed on a paper prototype and has been tested by ten potential users. The target of the gamified system are students.

Data collection has been conducted in the following way: first, it has been developed a gamified system and then it has been designed on a paper prototype. After that, potential users of the tool have tested the model and have answered questions in a semi-structured interview in order to understand if the gamified system would help them doing more sustainable actions.

The main results tell us that a gamified system helps to motivate students in having a sustainable behaviour. However, it is mainly effective for people that have already a strong sustainable attitude. For engaging the one who have weaker sustainable value, an external reward is needed.

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List of Tables

Table 1 Collection of coins ... 28

Table 2 Wallet colour ... 29

Table 3 Ten phases of the usability test ... 36

List of Figures

Figure 1 Three sustainable development pillars ... 2

Figure 2 Expected difficulty per level ... 24

Figure 3 Hand-sketched combined with printed version ... 35

Figure 4 Overall impression about the tool ... 39

Figure 5 User friendliness of the tool ... 40

Figure 6 Effectiveness of the tool ... 41

Figure 7 Use of the tool ... 43

Figure 8 Game mechanics ... 44

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1. Introduction

1.1 Context

According to the United Nation, the world population has reached 7.2 billion in July 2013. In accordance with the latest UN forecast, this number should reach 9.6 billion by 2050 and 10.8 billion by 2100 (United Nations, 2012b). Everybody will have to satisfy their basic needs such as food, drink, have a safe house, education, health, etc. On the other hand, resources available on the earth are not unlimited. In order to satisfy the needs of every human being, we have to rethink our way of living and our model of development.

Already now, some countries consume more resources than their lands can provide. For example, according to Global Footprint Network (2014),

“if everybody lived with

the same lifestyle of an average American we would need 5 planets”.

This is also possible because other countries use less resources and leave in poor conditions. One important thing that should be done, it would be to rebalance the differences between wealthy and poor countries.

The example above is known with the term Ecological Footprint which is defined by the WWF (2014a) as:

“[...] the impact of human activities measured in terms of the area of

biologically productive land and water required to produce goods

consumed and to assimilate the wasted generated. More simply, it is

the amount of the environment to produce the goods and service

necessary to support a particular lifestyle”.

According to Global Footprint Network (2014), at the moment we are using worldwide the resources for 1.5 planets and some scenarios predict that in 2030 this number will reaches 2 planets.

Now, if we combine the variables “population forecast in 2050” and the “use of 5 planets by American”, it is easy to understand that we have to change something in our development model. This is why we increasingly hear the word “Sustainability” and “Sustainable Development”. Indeed, our current model is:

 Environmentally not sustainable

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 Socially insufficiently participatory (Maeder, 2013)

1.1.1 Sustainable Development

The term Sustainable Development has many definitions but it was used the first time by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 and it reads as follow:

“[...][development] that

meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to

meet their own needs”

(United Nation, 1987). This definition encompasses economic and social development as well as the importance of preserving the environment and the resources. In other words, our development should include every human being and it should not compromise the environment.

The three pillars of sustainability

The report written by the Brundtland Commission highlighted how economic, social and environment are interconnected and are the foundation of a sustainable development. Public and private actors should not focus their attention only on one dimension but they should consider the three pillars together.

Figure 1 – Three sustainable development pillars

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Economic

This pillar refers to the ability to have enough resources to meet the needs of human beings in order to have a good quality of life (FSO, 2014). For a country this is measured with the employment rate, the GDP and other economic indicators (Action Town, 2010). Even if the three pillars should have the same weight, in reality, most of the time the economic one is put as a priority and it is usually more important than the other two pillars (i.e. social and environment).

Social

The social dimension is how the resources that we produce are distributed among the population (FSO, 2014). It includes the term fairness and the aim is to reduce social inequalities between human beings, to reduce poverty as well as to give access to education and health to everybody (Action Town, 2010).

Environment

It refers to the ability of preserving the environment and the resources for future generations (FSO, 2014). In this regard, we should try to pursue an economic and a social development without damaging the ecosystem. The goal is to ensure clean soil, water and air, preserve the health of the planet and use the resources in the most efficient way (Action Town, 2010).

1.1.2 Engaging in sustainability

Everybody recognises that our development model is not sustainable any more. For this reason, all public and private agents are putting more efforts to find new patterns of development, especially a sustainable one. At a macro level, the United Nations set global goals and targets to ensure political engagement for a sustainable development. For example, in 2012, the member states of the UN agreed in Rio de Janeiro on starting a process to define sustainable development goals (United Nations, 2012a). Then, every country is responsible to change the rules of the games and adapt them according to the goals set by the UN. For instance, Switzerland has decided its priorities in its Sustainable Development Strategy 2012-2015 (Swiss Confederation, 2012). Private businesses are also moving toward this direction and they are engaging in behaving with more sustainable practices. A lot of multinational companies are now releasing a sustainable report in order to inform all the stakeholders about their sustainable practices (Global Reporting Initiative, 2014).

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Despite the efforts major players are doing, the results are not satisfactory. For example, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, which is a major contributor to climate change, have been increasing in the last 20 years. The consequence of the global warming are the melting of glaciers which have important consequences on water supply, energy supply, vegetation, natural disasters, etc. Other indicators which show that we are not moving to the right direction are the loss of biodiversity and the overexploitation of natural resources (just to mention a few of them) (UNEP, 2012).

New solutions are desirable and the only commitment of governments and corporations is not enough. A good way to solve the sustainable issue would be to engage consumers in having a more sustainable behaviour. As a matter of fact, their choice has a considerable impact on the society and on the environment.

1.1.3 Foster a sustainable behaviour

When consumers decide to consume certain products or to have a specific lifestyle rather than another, their choices have direct or indirect consequences on the society and on the environment (Jackson, 2005). Therefore, the role of the consumers in the sustainable shift1 is crucial and motivating consumers towards a sustainable behaviour is extremely important.

According to Jackson (2005), motivating people to behave in a more sustainable manner is not simple. The behaviour of individuals is influenced by the social and institutional contexts. Indeed, the rules of the game and the behaviour of others around us play an important role and we behave in an unsustainable manner despite

“[...] our

own best intentions”

(Jackson, 2005).

The question now is: how can we change the behaviour of people toward a more sustainable one? This research proposes to answer this question by using an innovative approach which tries to motivate people adopting a sustainable behaviour. This approach is based upon gamification theories and uses game elements to stimulate sustainable actions. Before explaining into details this technique, it is important to have a look at some important trends and challenges that our society is experiencing or will face in the future.

1

Sustainable shift: defined by the author of this research as the “shift between a conventional society focused only on satisfying needs and desires to a sustainable one which consider the three sustainable dimension together when producing and consuming goods”

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1.2 Global Challenges and Trends

Before going into the core of this research, it is worth mentioning certain challenges that our society is facing and highlighting some important trends. After having analysed the macro environment with the PESTEL model (see infra, Appendix 1), the following aspects are the most relevant for the interest of this study.

Populations and middle class increase

As stated in the introduction, world population should exceed 9.5 billion by 2050 and most of this increase will happen in developing and emerging countries. At the same time, most of the economic growth will happen in these countries and many people will reach the middle class standard of living (WBCSD, 2010). If these people will live with the same lifestyle we are living now in western countries, there will not be enough resources for everybody without changing our model of development.

Deterioration of ecosystem

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, almost two-thirds of the ecosystem has been degraded in the last 50 years. This negative trend could continue significantly in the first half of this century (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). WWF reported that the factors which have the most ecological footprint are food, transport, household equipment and housing. Food, transport and energy sectors accounts for 63% of the global ecological footprint, while 30% of the carbon emissions are caused by housing (WWF, 2014b).

Consumers: gap between attitude and behaviour

Most of the people are well aware of the sustainable issue. For this reason they are willing to take some actions and behave accordingly. Nonetheless, their willingness is not always transformed into a sustainable behaviour (WBCSD, 2009).

Studies have shown that consumers are shifting their consumer values and ideals and are willing to buy products which are produced according to sustainable standards. Unfortunately, when it comes to the actual buying they do not act in this way. The main reasons because this happens are: lack of understanding, selfishness linked to their current lifestyle and perceived higher costs (WBCSD, 2009).

Social Networks

A trend that we take into consideration for the sake of this research is the one linked to the use of internet and more precisely the one associated to social networks.

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Nowadays, social networks have a relevant presence in our life and almost everybody is registered in one of them. When Facebook started in 2004, there were only few people who knew what it was. After 10 years, everybody knows about it and in 2013 it reached 1.23 billion monthly active users (Sedghi, 2014). Other social networks which are also very popular are Twitter and Google+ but there are many others. People like to be always connected, informed and share what they are doing all the time.

If we consider also the new generation, defined by Zichermann and Linder (2010)

“the

Generation G”

(i.e. young generation born between the years 1998 and 2000), the social network trend is even more important. This generation has grown up with Internet and social networks. In the US, more than 7 million of them play on a regular basis at games on social networks. Zichermann and Linder (2010) predict that for this generation there will be a penetration rate of 100 percent for social networking.

Videogames

According to PHD (2013), videogames are very present in our society. Worldwide, we are playing 7 billion hours weekly. One billion of people spend at least one hour daily on average playing videogames. While in the past these games were played alone, now with Internet is possible to play these games with others users. These types of games are called Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). In 2005, a research affirmed that 60 % of minors play video games every day. After two years, another study stated that this number was growing. The research showed as well that many children by the age of 10 have already experienced the game on mobile phones and handheld games (PHD, 2013).

The author of this research remembers that in the summer 2014, he met for the first time the daughter (three years old) of his cousin. He was impressed because this young girl was already playing games on a tablet. What was incredible was the simplicity that she had in using the device. Another surprising thing was that she was playing games with an educational aim. For example, she was already learning the alphabet and she was able to read the time on a traditional clock.

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2. Gamification

In the introduction of this research, it has been highlighted that our Earth is under pressure and a new model of development is desirable. As it has been shown, although people are willing to behave in a more sustainable way, they hardly manage to do it. Therefore, the challenge is to find a way to transform the intention to behave in such a way into an actual behaviour. This research will try to motivate people to have a sustainable behaviour using a gamified system. This approach is known with the term gamification

2.1 Definition

First of all, it is important to define this unusual name. Zichermann and Cunningham (2011) define gamification as

“The process of game-thinking and game mechanics to

engage users and solve problems”.

I personally prefer the definition given by Werbach and Hunter (2012) which read as follow:

« The use of game elements and game-design techniques in non-game

contexts ».

Thus, in gamification there is the presence of some “game elements”. For instance, when we play tennis the elements are the net, the ball, the racket, the notion of points and so on. For Tetris, the elements are the blocks with different shapes, the creation of the lines, the speed that increases when the user levels up, etc.

The second aspect of the definition is “game-design techniques”. This is how a game designer decides to put the different elements together.

Finally, the definition suggests that there is a ”non-game contexts”, meaning that the game elements can be used out of a game experience. For instance, game elements could be used to motivate employees or engage customers. Therefore, gamification is not a game, but it is used in a real world situation. Users are not playing at a PlayStation, but they are doing real stuff motivated by these game elements.

For Werbach and Hunter (2012), there are mainly three non-game contexts that gamification could be used: internal gamification, external gamification and behaviour change. Internal gamification is used within an existing organisation: for example to improve the productivity of the employees of a company. External gamification is about your clients or the potential customers. It could be used to increase the loyalty of the customers and increase their engagement. Finally, behaviour-change gamification tries

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to shape positive new habits among people. Examples are having a healthy lifestyle, doing more physical activity, learning at school having fun, etc. These new habits are usually

“[…] desirable societal outcomes »

(Werbach, Hunter, 2012).

In the following section, there are interesting case studies about gamification.

2.2 Gamification case studies

In this chapter there will be great examples that help understanding how companies managed to use the gamification technique. The first example is about a call-centre that managed to improve the motivation of its employees. The second one show how gamification managed to improve the loyalty of customers and the final one explains how a sport company managed to motivate its clients in having a new behaviour. Internal gamification: LiveOps

LiveOps is a call-centre that hires independent agents to deal with customer service. The company has been able to transform a boring job such as a call-centre agent in a completely new and interesting experience. They implemented game mechanics in order to motivate their agents (Bunchball, 2014).

In using points, badges and leaderboards, they were able to reach considerable results. For example, when agents finish a training module, they receive badges and points, there are rewards points for better call conversation and agents are put on a public leaderboards where other users can see who are the best performers (Bunchball, 2014).

The level of the service has improved by 10 %, the average time to answer a client decreased by 15 % and the performance of sales have improved (Werback and Hunter, 2012).

External gamification: Frequent Flyer Program

Many airlines companies offer the frequent flyer program (FFP). FFP is a loyalty program which allows travellers to cumulate miles that correspond to the distance they have flown. Then, the miles can be redeemed for other trips or for other benefits such as priority in lines, class upgrades, access to the lounges of the airports and additional services (Frequent-Flyer program, Wikipedia).

Airlines companies have managed to use game mechanics in a very effective way. For instance, miles correspond to the points in a game and the different levels are the class (e.g. business class, first class, economy). In addition, travellers show their status

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when they use the VIP lounges, the priority access and so on (Zichermann and Linder, 2010).

Thus, airlines companies have managed to motivate travellers to buy flight tickets using game mechanics.

Behaviour change gamification: Nike+

Many people are aware that doing physical activity is positive for their mental and physical health. However, when people have to do sport or going to run they lack in motivation.

Nike managed to develop a system (i.e. Nike+) that motivates users to go running. The technology of Nike+ is able to track how fast people run, how far they run, the time they run, etc. Then, users can compare their results against themselves, against other runners in a leaderboards, can form group and can share their results on social networks. In addition, there are points, challenges and other game mechanics that motivate users to do physical activity (Werbach and Hunter, 2012)

Since its inception, users have burned 12.8 billion calories and have done 85 billion steps (Nike, 2014)

By using gamification technique, Nike managed to increase brand loyalty and it is a good example of how gamification managed to motivate people going to run.

2.3 Situation to use gamification

Gamification is a way to stimulate a desired behaviour. Werbach and Hunter (2012) propose that there are three main activities where motivation plays an important role: creative work, mundane tasks, and behaviour change. This research will focus only on behaviour change.

The authors suggest that behaviour-change is needed when

“[…] people understand

something is good for them but have hard time doing it”

(Werbach and Hunter, 2012). A good example is physical activity. Most of us understand the benefit of physical activity and would like to practice it but only a few are actually doing it. The main reason is because people hardly find the motivation. Another good example is sustainability: although people are always more sensitive to the sustainable issue and they state that they would like to have a more sustainable behaviour, in reality only a minority is acting in this way.

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The challenge here is to find what motivates people and in this regard gamification has proved to be a good tool to engage people in “doing things”.

2.4 Motivation

Understanding what motivates people is important to achieve certain objectives. For example, there are some people that are motivated by their salary when they are working. Some others are motivated by other factors such as the type of work, the atmosphere, the flexible time and so on. If you know that your employees are motivated by money, you will pay a good salary. In this example, employees are motivated by an external factor because people work knowing that they will get a salary and eventually a bonus.

Let’s assume now that you really like football and you want to go and watch the world cup in Brazil. This motivation is internal and you go there and pay the flight ticket and the entrance at the stadium because you want to do it. This motivation is different than the one expressed above because it comes from the activity itself and not from an external factor.

When a person is motivated by an external factor is called extrinsic motivation (e.g. salary), while when a person wants to do something because one feels involved in the activity is intrinsic motivation (e.g. world cup) (Deci and Ryan, 2000).

A psychology theory which suggests that extrinsic motivation is very important to motivate people doing things is behaviourism. According to this theory, a reward or a punishment is what people need to make things. Therefore for behaviourist, human beings respond only to external stimuli (Werbach and Hunter, 2012). By contrast, there are cognitivist theories that state that motivation is something that human beings have already inside and that the external environment has to support this internal motivation. This theory is known with the name “Self-Determination Theory” (Werbach and Hunter, 2012).

2.4.1 Self-Determination Theory

According to the Self-Determination Theory, people have intrinsic psychological needs that are the source of self-motivation. These needs are: needs for competence, need for relatedness and need for autonomy. This theory, developed by Deci and Ryan, suggests that if individuals manage to fulfil these three needs they become intrinsically motivated and they are self-determined. Their thesis is based on the assumptions that human beings are driven by the internal desire for growth and therefore is important to

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provide supportive condition to enable this growth. If a person is able to experience “autonomy”, “competence” and “relatedness” performing a task, she will be more engaged and will be intrinsically motivated (Werbach and Hunter, 2012).

In order to better understand these concepts, definitions and examples are provided in the following paragraphs.

Competence

Sometimes also defined as “mastery”, competence is linked to the difficulty of the task and the ability of the person to do something which requires specific skills: learn how to swim, learn how to drive or being able to solve a mathematical problem (Werbach and Hunter, 2012).

Autonomy

This is experienced when an individual has the feeling of being in control of her own life and she has the power to determine her behaviour. If a teenager is forced by her parents to do a sport rather than another, it will not be the same as if this decision had been taken by the teenager because she really wants to do it (Werbach and Hunter, 2012).

Relatedness

It is the social dimension of the Self-Determination Theory. Human beings have a strong desire to stay with others and to share their experience with colleagues, friends, family, etc. For example, when a person gets a promotion at work, she is very happy to share this with her family (Werbach and Hunter, 2012).

2.4.2 Motivation and games

Now that it is clear what motivates human beings “to do things”, it is important to understand the relationship between motivation and games.

As we have mentioned, activities that satisfy one or more of the need for “competence”, “autonomy” and “relatedness” are inclined to be intrinsically motivated and people will do these activities because they want to do them. Games are good examples of the Self-Determination Theory. A person usually plays a game because she wants to play and not because someone forces her to play (it is an autonomous choice) and she decides how and when she wants to play. When a gamer is able to level up in a game, she has a sense of mastery or competence and when we can share our results or even

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play against other people, we have a good feeling (i.e. relatedness) (Werbach and Hunter, 2012).

To better understand what drives people when they play a game, there is a theory developed by Richard Bartle. In his research, he found out that there are mainly four types of players and it is important to consider their personality when a game or a gamified system is designed.

2.4.3 Types of players

According to Bartle (1996), there are mainly four types of players: Killers, Achievers, Socialisers and Explorers. The distinction between the players is not mutually exclusive. Indeed, every player has some attributes of each of the four types of players at the same time. On an average, people have the following split:

 Socialisers: 80 %

 Explorers: 50 %

 Achievers: 40 %

 Killers: 20 % (Zichermann and Cunningham, 2011). Socialisers

These players are engaged in a game mainly for the social interaction. The game is the social context or the background that serves to communicate and relate to other people. They definitely prefer multi-player games rather than single-player games. Relationship is key for them and they usually like observing, sympathising, communicating with the other members of the community (Bartle, 1996).

Explorers

Explorers are interested in discovering new things. For them the final objective is not winning or scoring points but the experience to get there. They need to find out new stuff and then report back to the community (Bartle, 1996).

Achievers

These types of gamers are interested in the competition, in collecting points and levelling up. They have little interest in the final reward but they are more interested at building and maintaining their reputation. The fact that they have been able to reach that specific level or that amount of points is what satisfy them (Bartle, 1996).

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Killers

Killers are comparable to achievers because they like to win. They like to impose their will on others and competition is very important. For them, it is important that they win but also that others players lose. They also like the fact that others players can admire them when they beat an opponent (Bartle, 1996).

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3. Analysis

To foster a sustainable behaviour, it has been designed a model that has the goal to make people doing more sustainable actions in their daily live. This model is a gamified system and it has been built using gamification techniques. The model is still at a prototype stage and it has been created on paper. If the outcome of this study will show positive results, the gamified system could be implemented as an app for mobile phones and tablets and/or as a website.

3.1 Objective of the study

People understand that sustainability is a serious issue but they have hard time in having a proper sustainable behaviour. The objective of this study is to check whether a gamified system would help users in having a more sustainable behaviour in real life.

3.2 Target and sample

The target of this study are students of the HES-SO, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland. The choice of this target has been decided mainly for four reasons. The first one is because at the moment the HES-SO does not include in its sustainable strategy an important stakeholder like students. Apart from offering some courses related to sustainability or integrating this subject in some courses, there is not a strategy which tries to change the behaviour of students in an effective way.2 Secondly, the role of universities in the society should also have a higher educational aim. They should not only provide the tools to students for a future career, but they should also educate them to be responsible citizens. Historically, universities have led the changes in society through scientific discovery but also through the education of future important actors of the society (Lozano, 2006). Therefore, also in the field of sustainability, universities should play the role of pioneer and shape the behaviour of students into a sustainable one. According to Cortese (2003), universities are a miniature community of the society. Thus, the way that they conduct their activities is an important example for the whole community. Students should be aware of the sustainable issue and they should be

“

[…]

actively engaged in the practice of

environmentally sustainable living”

(Cortese, 2003). He continues affirming that a school that has sustainable practices in the daily activities and cooperates with the community but does not include the students in this process will lose 75 percent of the

2

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effectiveness of its actions (Cortese, 2003). A good example is a professor in the University of Hawaii who has developed a system to motivate students to have a sustainable behaviour. Hawaii is heavily dependent on foreign oil and this could have several negative consequences on the life in Hawaii. Therefore, this professor has thought to educate students on sustainability and sustainable practices in order to change their behaviour and share their knowledge with the other members of the community. (Kukui Cup, 2011).

Furthermore, students are a suitable target for this study. Indeed, they are highly connected with their smart phones and they are always on social networks sharing their life. In addition, they are more aware about sustainability than past generations and they are the “future generation” that should be concerned about the sustainable issue.

Finally, the HES-SO would have some benefits as well. Indeed, it would be recognised as a school that cares about sustainability and might be able to have an added value compared to other universities. According to Cortese (2003), a university that offers sustainability as an important part of the educational program might be able to attract students and funding.

The prototype has been tested on 10 students who come from different regions of the world.

3.3 Methodology

The methodology used for this research is the exploratory research, which allows to explore and discover new and unknown concept, phenomenon or field.

In the specific case of the research, the new concept is the gamified system which has the objective to motivate users to behave in a more sustainable way.

The first step was the development of a gamified system (see infra, Chapter 4, Living Green). Then, on a second stage, it has been asked to potential users to test it and was asked their feedback.

The collection of the data has been divided in the following phases:

 Phase 1: Define the personality of users and their attitude towards games and social networks through a questionnaire (see infra, 3.3.1 Questionnaire)

 Phase 2: Ask users to perform activities and interact with a paper prototype (i.e. the gamified system) and observe them (see infra, 3.3.2 Paper Prototype Test)

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 Phase 3: Conduct a semi-structured interview (see infra, 3.3.3 Semi-structured Interviews).

3.3.1 Questionnaire

The first activity users had to perform was answering a questionnaire on social networks and games (see infra, Appendix 3). The objective of the questionnaire is to understand whether users use often social networks and play games. In addition, some questions have the target to define the type of players users are. The answers of the questionnaire will enable to see whether there is a correlation between the type of gamers and the type of answers provided by participants at phase 3.

3.3.2 Paper Prototype Test

This phase is at the core of the research. By using a paper prototype, users interact with the gamified system and have the opportunity to test it. The objective is to make the experience and the interface for users as realistic as possible.

Paper prototyping method

Paper prototyping is a method used for testing user interfaces. First, the prototype is hand-sketched on a paper, then it is tested on several users and finally is adjusted according to the users’ feedback. According to Snyder (2003),

“Paper prototyping is a variation of usability testing where

representative users perform realistic tasks by interacting with a

paper version of the interface that is manipulated by a person

“playing computer”, who doesn’t explain how the interface is

intended to work.”

Thus, the idea is to reproduce the screen of a mobile phone, tablet, screen of a computer on a paper and ask to future potential users to use it as if it was a real one. In Appendix 7, there is an example of a paper prototype.

When the prototype is tested by users (i.e. usability test), there are usually many people involved in the process: the user itself, the facilitator, the “computer” and the observer. The facilitator is the one who guides the user in her experience with the interface: she asks the user to perform the activities and supports the user when needed. The “computer” is the person who is in charge to make the interactivity of the prototype. Her role is to move the pieces of paper when the user clicks on an item and

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to change the different screens. Finally, there is the observer who takes notes and sees what the reaction of the user is (Snyder, 2003).

Paper prototyping has many advantages. First of all, it is cheaper compared to a real version of the tool you want to implement. It is not required an IT specialist at an early stage and any person can create the tool. Secondly, it gives already valuable feedback from users and a developer can understand at the very beginning what are the elements to be changed, modified, adjusted or eliminated. Then, it is very easy and quick to modify the first version because all the elements are usually sketched on a paper by hands (Snyder, 2003). In addition, this method allowed me to be creative and to develop alone a tool that I would have never developed if I had to do in reality because of my lack of skills in IT.

The design, development, test of the paper prototype is based on the book “Paper Prototyping: the Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces” by Caroline Snyder. This book is a very well written guide to create paper prototyping and test them. I have not strictly followed all the advice given in the book, but I have adapted to my needs. For example, I have been facilitator, computer, and observer at the same time, when usually in a usability test all these roles are performed by different people. Another advice that I have not followed is “adjusting the prototype after each test”. I decided to do all the usability tests with the same prototype, without adapting it, and at the end I have drawn conclusions based on all the usability tests.

3.3.3 Semi-structured Interviews

After users will have performed the activities with the prototype, they will have to answer some questions about the experience with the gamified system. The semi-structured interview (see infra, Appendix 21) should enable to find out whether the gamified system is an effective tool to change the behaviour of people toward a sustainable one. In addition, it should highlight what are the single elements (i.e. “game mechanics”) of the model that need to be modified, adjusted, eliminated or some others elements that need to be added.

The semi-structured interview was chosen because it allows the respondent to answer the questions freely and to bring up new ideas. A set of potential questions have been created for each subject that need to be checked but not all the questions have been asked. Indeed, Appendix 21 has served as a guide and as a framework of thematic to be investigated.

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The objectives of the questions were the following:

 Have a general feedback about the gamified system and on the experience (gamification and paper prototype)

 Check whether the gamified system is user friendly or not.

 Evaluate whether the gamified system is an effective tool to motivate users to do sustainable actions

 Verify whether users would use the gamified system if it were implemented in real life

 Receive feedback on the individual game mechanics

On the one hand the semi-structured interview allows the respondent to give valuable and open feedback without having any type of limitations when answering. On the other hand, the results of the semi-structured interview are open to interpretation and they do not give precise answers on the selected theme. Therefore, it was asked to users to answer as well a short questionnaire. The objective of it was to have a rating on the topic discussed in the semi-structured interview.

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4. Living Green

Living Green is the name of the gamified system that has been created for this research. Users can mainly decide to do three things: the Projects, the Green Trivia and the Community.

In the Projects users can decide to perform several sustainable activities. The Green

Trivia is a quiz where users have to answer some questions about sustainability and in

the Community users can interact with other users and discuss about sustainability. Before explaining into details the content of Living Green, it is important to define a term that will be used extensively in this chapter: “game mechanics”.

Game mechanics

When a gamified system is designed, the first elements that are considered are the game mechanics. According to Zichermann and Cunningham (2011),

“Mechanics

make up the functioning components of the game”.

Thus, mechanics are the different parts of a game such as points, levels, badges, challenges, etc.

In the following sections, it will be explained all the different mechanics used for building the gamified system for this research.

4.1 Projects

When users decide to go in the Projects, they can choose to participate at several projects (see infra for more details, 4.1.2 Types of projects).

In the projects, users commit to do sustainable actions in real life. For example, in the project Foody they can commit that they will buy organic eggs. It is just a commitment and users will not have to prove that they have really bought organic eggs but it is based on self-reporting. At the same time, Living Green will not be able to check whether users are really doing the sustainable actions or not.

4.1.1 Assumptions about the actions

The idea behind the actions in the project section is that it gives valuable tips about sustainability to users. It works as an advisor who suggests users about sustainability. In this way, when users will be confronted with the same activity in real life, they will remember what it has been suggested by Living Green and they will do the sustainable action. The next paragraph offers an example of this concept.

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A person may have the wrong habit of throwing away a piece of paper in the rubbish bin. This person may be warned about this bad habit and be suggested to recycle the paper instead. If this person is continuously warned to recycle the paper, at some point the person will automatically recycle the paper. The same happens in Living Green and in its projects: users commit to engage in sustainable behaviour and at one point they will automatically behave in such a way.

A company that has developed already a similar tool to promote sustainable behaviour among participants is Practically Green. The concept is similar to the one developed for this research: users commit to do sustainable activities and it is based on self-reporting. Practically Green agrees that with the self-reporting system is not possible to control whether users do or not the actions. However, it affirms that even if users do not always do the actions they claim it is a good way to educate them. In addition, after a while when a user will be confronted with the sustainable issue, she will know what is the best conduct and will behave accordingly. Let’s give an example to explain it. A user commits to switch off the computer when she leaves working. It is possible that at the beginning she will not do it, but after a while she will realise that it is not an action that requires so much effort and therefore she will do it.3

This system of self-reporting implemented by Practically Green has had tremendous results. According to Werback and Hunter (2012), in less than one year, this system has cut 14 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, reduced the consumption of water by around 95 million litres, recycled 900,000 kilogram of garbage and saved 6 million kilowatt hours of electricity.

4.1.2 Types of projects

The decision of the topics of the projects has been decided by the author of this research after consulting several sources. They are based on different sustainable issues, and as stated above, the objective is to motivate users to have a sustainable behaviour. The choice of the subjects has been chosen after considering which daily activities have an impact on the environment and on the society.

WWF (2014c) suggests that there are the following topics where individuals can have an impact: drink and food, building and clothes, work and school, free time and holiday, waste and recycling, garden and balcony, investment and retirement, fashion and cosmetics. Ecogeste.ch (2014) proposes the following domains: air, food, biodiversity, office, construction, waste, water, energy, society and transport. Vedura (2014), a

3

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French consulting company in the field of sustainability, suggests the following areas: biodiversity, climate change, citizenship, consumption, waste, mobility, water, energy, free time and health.

In Living Green, users can choose to participate at the following projects:

 Energy savvy  Mobility  Foody  Water  Second life  Informed buyer

 Move your body

Here below there is a short explanation of the projects and in Appendix 2 is possible to find the associated activities.

Energy savvy

Energy consumption – electricity and heat produced with fossil fuels – is an important cause of the increase of the greenhouse gases emissions which contribute to climate change (EPA, 2013).

This project aims to make consumers more aware about this issue and try to give valuable tips on how is possible to reduce the impact on the environment.

Mobility

Another important contributor of the climate change is transport. Depending on the type of transport mode that people decide to use, there will be a different impact on the environment. For example using a car, instead of a bus or a train, will generate more carbon dioxide (Mobitool, 2014). In addition, the current transport system reduces the possibilities of doing physical activity which has a negative effect on the health of people (see in this chapter the “Move your body” project for more details).

The project “Mobility” suggests different solutions in order to decrease the impact on the environment as well as it shows the positive effects of doing physical activity. Foody

Food is indispensable for our life. Producing and consuming food has an important impact on the world’s resources and on the environment (European Commission, 2014a).

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Another important part of this project is about healthy food. Indeed, an unhealthy diet can lead to have chronic diseases (WHO, 2014a).

This project gives advises on healthy diets and explains how the food is produced and what is the impact on the environment and on the society.

Water

Maybe not a major issue in Switzerland but in some other part of the word it is, water is another fundamental resource for human being (UN-Water, 2014). Understanding the importance of water and behaving consequently is what it will be possible to find in this project.

Second life

There is still a lot of waste that is either burnt by incinerator or disposed into landfills. Both methods for disposing waste have a negative impact on the quality of the air, the water and the soil (European Commission, 2014b).

This project tries to motivate people to use fewer resources, to recycle more and to reuse products as much as possible.

Informed buyer

When goods are produced, they can have many effects on the society (i.e. working conditions of workers) and on the environment (i.e. use of resources, waste production, etc.). Consumers can reduce the negative effects by being aware of these impacts and accordingly, they can buy goods which are produced in the most responsible and sustainable way (Guide des achats professionnels responsable, 2014)

Move your body

As for the Foody project, the last project is about health. Physical activity can have significant benefits for health (WHO, 2014b). Having a healthy lifestyle should be a result of sustainable development and at the same time, healthy people will be able to contribute to have a sustainable development (WHO, 2014c).

4.1.3 Motivating a sustainable behaviour

The activities within the projects are the desirable behaviours and users will be motivated by a point system. Every time that a user will commit to do a sustainable activity, she will receive some points. Before looking at how the point system of Living Green is designed, it is explained what the literature tells about points.

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4.1.4 Points

Werbach and Hunter (2012) suggest that points are important in a game for the following reasons:

 points tell the user how well is performing

 assuming there is a prize, users know how many points they need to win something

 assuming there is a reward, users know how many points they need to get the reward

 points are a good feedback system and show at every activity that the user is going in the right direction

 in a game with other players, it shows to other users how a player is playing and could be an indication of status

 finally, points are good for the game designer because they are easy to analyse and they allow to understand the users’ behaviour

According to Zichermann and Cunningham (2011) there are five points systems. For the design of this model, two types of points systems have been used: Experience Points and Redeemable Points.

Experience points are the most important types of points and are used to guide a player during the experience. Experience points systems never decrease (they just go up) and are not redeemable. In Green Living these points are called “Green Points”. The second point system used in Green Living is the redeemable points. Users expect to convert these points with other things. They are similar to loyalty program where users first earn the points and then use them (“earn and burn”). In the model used for this research, these points are known as “Coins” (see infra, 4.2.1. Coins).

Green Points

In Green Living, Green Points (i.e. experience points) are the points that are assigned when users do sustainable actions. For example, if a user decides to recycle pet, she receives 5 Green Points and if she chooses to use public transport regularly, she gets 30 Green Points. The points are correlated with the difficulty of the actions users have to perform. The more efforts they put, the more points they receive. In Appendix 2 is possible to see the type of actions users have to perform and the associated points.

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On the top left of the screen (see infra, Appendix 5), users can see their Green Points. These points are not redeemable and they increase every time a user makes a sustainable action. In order to get the points, users have to click the Project label and then decide the project they want to participate (see infra, Appendix 7).

4.1.5 Levels

Levels show the progress of the user and indicate where the player is in the game experience. The difficulty of the levels is not linear or exponential but it follows a curvilinear form. In order to prevent users from leaving the gamified system at the beginning of the experience, the first level is the easiest one and then it progresses toward a more complex one (Zichermann and Cunningham, 2011).

In Living Green, when a user starts a project, she starts from level one. At level one of every project there are three activities users have to perform. For example, at level one of the Foody project, users have to commit to “eat fruits regularly”, “eat vegetables regularly” and “shop local fruit/vegetable”. Users can decide which activity they want to perform within the level. In order to go through the level, users must complete all the activities. Once all the activities are completed, users have to take a final test (see infra, End Level) and only if they answer all the questions correctly, they will be able to pass to level two. When a user completes a level, she receives a badge.

Figure 2, Expected difficulty per level

The graph above shows how the difficulty of the levels increases in Living Green. At level one, the activities are quite simple and the corresponding points are correlated with the difficulty of the activities. From level two, the activities start to be more

A ction s/Po in ts Levels 1 2 3

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engaging and therefore the Green Points have more value. At level three, there is a slowdown in the complexity of the activities users have to take.

For this research, three levels have been designed for every project. Since in every level there are three activities and there are seven projects, a total of sixty-three activities have been created for this research.

End level

Some games have at the end of the level a fight against a boss. The boss is usually more powerful than the others enemies or obstacles the player had met until that point (Boss, Wikipedia).

Green living has as well at the end of the level something similar. Users have to read an article about a selected topic, which is related to the actions they had taken in that level, and then they have to answer some questions in the form of a quiz with true and false answers within a limited period of time (in order to avoid they go on the internet to find the information).

For example, at the end of level two of the Foody project, there is an article about Organic Food (see infra, Appendix 13). Thus, first users have to read the article which provides valuable information about organic food. After that, users have to take a quiz about the learned topic. When users answer the questions, they are not able to see the article, so it is important that they had read the article attentively beforehand.

The quiz at the end of the level has been designed for two reasons. The first one is to raise awareness about a sustainable issue. Users will have to learn the topic because otherwise they will not be able to answer correctly the quiz and consequently to clear the level.

The second reason is to be sure that users do at least one thing in that level. As we have highlighted before, when users commit to do the activities within the level, it is just a commitment and it is not possible to check whether users have done the sustainable action or not. In introducing a quiz at the end of the level, we make sure that users read the article in order to answer correctly all the question of the quiz.

Badges

After having answered correctly at all the questions of the quiz, users receive the corresponding badge. It is possible to have a maximum of seven badges, one for each project. For example, if a user completes the first level of all the seven projects, she will own seven badges. At the moment that a user completes the second level of a project,

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the badge she had received at the end of level one will be replaced by the badge of level two, which is more important.

Human beings have the desire to be recognised for achievements and badges are an ideal game mechanics to express it. In addition, badges mark also the status of a person. Some other people like just collecting items and for them collecting badges are a powerful drive (Zichermann, Cunninggham, 2011).

According to Antin and Churchill (2011), badges have the following social psychological functions:

 Goal settings: they challenge users to meet specific goals. Goal settings are known to be powerful motivators

 Instruction: they serve as guidelines throughout the experience of the users

 Reputation: for some users is a way to show off what they have achieved and to demonstrate to other users what are their skills

 Status/affirmation: first badges can engage users because they are as status symbol. In addition, they are like trophies which shown past accomplishments

 Group identification: when more users have the same badge, they will feel part of a group

Another game mechanics which is quite powerful are leaderboards.

4.1.5.1 Leaderboards

Leaderboards are essentially a ranking system. Their goal is to make comparison between users (Zichermann, Cunninggham, 2011). In some situation they can be a potent motivator because users know that they need a few points to go up in the ranking. However, for some other users they can have a negative effect. For example, when a user sees that is far behind the top players, it can reduce the enthusiasm to continue because she will never be able to reach that level (Werback, Hunter, 2012). For this reason, there are two ways to make the leaderboard interesting for all the users, even for the one who stands low in the ranking.

The first manner to design a good leaderboad is to place the user always in the middle of the ranking. No matter how many points she has, her position in the ranking will be always in the middle. In this way, a user will see only the other people who are very close in the ranking and she will perceive that it will not be too difficult to overcome

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them (Zichermann, Cunninggham, 2011). In Living Green users are always placed in the middle of the ranking.

Another important feature of good leaderboards is to slice them into various rankings. (Zichermann, Cunninggham, 2011). In Living Green, users will be able to see themselves in four different ranking systems.

The first type is a ranking of the projects. Users are able to see which project is the one with more points compared to the others one. The second ranking scheme is the overall one. Users can see how they are performing against all the other users. Users will be also allowed to form groups and therefore there will also be the leaderboard for groups. Besides, the last ranking is also about a group, but this group is given by the membership users had already acquired. For example, Living Green has been designed for students and they have been split by their branch of study (i.e. in French: Filière). If this gamified system had to be implemented in a work environment, we would have had the teams where employees work or the departments.

4.2 Community

When designing a game or a gamified system it is essential to consider the social dimension. As mentioned above, most people play games to socialise (i.e. on average 80 % of us play games for the social dimension) and therefore it is important to integrate game mechanics with social interactions. If a game is designed only for winning, it will appeal only to a small part of the targeted audience (Zichermann and Cunninggham, 2011). For this reason, in Living Green it is present a community. The Community is similar to the dashboard of the most popular social network in the world: Facebook. In the community, users can interact with other users and the topic of the dashboard is sustainability. Every time that a user interacts with the community, she is rewarded with coins.

4.2.1 Coins

Before it has been mentioned that in Living Green there are two points system. The first one that was presented was experience points (i.e. Green Points). In this section, it will be illustrated how it works the second point system: redeemable points.

Redeemable points in Green Living are known as Coins and users can receive them when they interact with the community. The objective of the coins is to increase the engagement of users in the community. By rewarding users with coins, the expectation is that they will use the community as much as possible.

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In the following table it is possible to see how users can collect the Coins.

Table 1: Collection of coins

Activity Coins

Comment news and picture 2

Vote news and picture 5

Post sustainable news 20

Share picture of a sustainable activity 30

Best news of the month 50

Best picture of the month 70

Invite a friend in Living Green 30

First off, users can post sustainable news. For example, they find interesting news about climate change and they share it with the other members of the community. In doing so, users receive 20 coins. In addition, if users do a sustainable activity, they can take a picture of themselves while they are doing it (e.g. recycling paper) and post it in the community. In this case, users will receive 30 coins. Doing a sustainable activity is more demanding than just reading and sharing an article and therefore it is worth more coins.

Other users of the community can then comment and vote the post that other users had shared. When users comment an article or a picture, they receive 2 coins while when they vote, they receive 5 coins. Voting other posts is considered more important than commenting because at the end of the month the best news and the best pictures will be rewarded with additional coins: 50 coins for the best news and 70 coins for the best picture. The best article and news will be elected according to the vote of the other users.

As in real life, coins will be kept by users in a wallet with specific characteristics (see infra for details, 4.2.2 Wallet).

One issue that might arise in the community is that users will post any type of news or pictures neglecting the sustainable dimension. One solution to this potential issue is the voting system. The fact that other users vote the best sustainable activity, it should prevent other users from posting any type of news or pictures because they are motivated by the possibility of winning the prize at the end of the month. Of course, this might not be enough and therefore another control system should be developed. A solution could be that the manager of the platform will control the content of the posts and will filter them. At this stage of the design of the gamified system, a control system has not been developed.

Foster a sustainable behaviour using a gamification approach : an exploratory study